The Irish Healer (7 page)

Did Dr. Edmunds sound regretful of his decision? She couldn’t tell.

They arrived at the rear ground-floor room he used for his consultations. Dr. Edmunds extracted a key from his waistcoat pocket, turned it in the lock, and went inside. The room was cool, shadowy like much of the house, and smelled of camphor. The aroma bit into her nose and tightened
her throat, but it drew her in nonetheless, her curiosity beckoning.

He lit a lamp upon his desk. “I keep the room shuttered against the outside. I’ve always felt the quiet helps calm my patients.”

The room was as neat and tidy as he was. A sturdy oak desk filled most of the space, the forgotten remains of his breakfast fighting with orderly piles of paperwork for space upon its surface. His chair stood behind and another in front, padded with several thick pillows, while a narrow sofa was positioned against the wall with a small drop-leaf table at its side. Shallow bookshelves on the opposite wall bracketed a glass-fronted cabinet. Rachel peered inside and found it contained what any healer would need—powders and pills for the stomach, ointments that would treat rashes or sties of the eye, fever mixture, styptic water. Laudanum. She could smell their aromas without unstoppering a bottle or opening a packet—the acidic bite, the odd sweetness.

She straightened, curiosity satisfied. Those aromas belonged in her failed past.

“I did not expect to find the space so sparsely equipped.” She had never been in a physician’s office before. Her family could not afford the services of a doctor. Neither could most folks in Carlow, leaving them to the care of the apothecary, or women like her mother and herself.

I tried so hard, Mary
. Though none of the Fergusons had believed that.

“I require little more than what you see,” he said. “As a physician, I don’t need saws or bottles of leeches. And I do not stock more than a minimum of medicines in that cabinet. It’s easy enough to obtain preparations from a nearby
apothecary. There’s no need for me to keep much on hand in the office, aside from simple instruments such as my stethoscope.”

Crossing to a table against the far wall, he opened an intricately inlaid walnut case polished to a dizzying sheen. He pulled out three pieces of pale wood tubing, one bell-shaped on its end, and began fitting them together.

“It’s a device to aid in listening to the heart and lungs, Miss Dunne,” he continued. “I purchased it last year in France. When I hired Miss Guimond, in fact. It’s quite simple yet elegant. Would you like to examine it?” Pride lifted his voice.

“No. Thank you, Dr. Edmunds.” At one time, she would have been intrigued.

Returning the stethoscope to its case, he pressed his hand gently upon the lid to close it, running his fingertips across the top of the case until they slid off the nearest side. A strange little gesture, bittersweet. Clearly regretful.

“On these shelves and in my desk are where I keep my patient files . . .”

Rachel crossed to his desk to follow his instruction when her gaze settled on a medical text atop it, previously hidden from her view by the stacks of paper. Pages lay open to a small illustration of the inside of a swollen throat.

In a flash, she was back at Mary Ferguson’s bedside, her face the oddest shade of blue . . . 
Wake up, Mary
. “Oh,” she muttered. Every ounce of blood left her head to pool in her feet.

“Miss Dunne, you are unwell.” Dr. Edmunds clutched her elbow to keep her from falling. What did he see on her face, in her eyes? A woman who had failed at the one thing she’d long believed herself most competent at—healing? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His hand shifted to feel her pulse, brushing back with his thumb the cuff banding her sleeve. At the gentle touch of his hand, her blood came rushing back, a wall she ran into full force.

“Doctor . . .” She jumped back, jerked her sleeve down over her hand. “I . . . Dr. Edmunds. I assure you I am not ill. I missed breakfast, that is all, and am still weary from my journey. You need not examine me.”

He looked almost as startled as she felt. “I didn’t mean to upset you. My apologies again for being overly familiar. It seems I cannot help myself. A physician’s habit.”

“I . . . I need to go outside.” What was wrong with her? She was made of sturdier stock than what she was exhibiting. Irish stock. Timelessly strong, weathered but never beaten, the blood of Celtic warriors in her veins.

Too late to wish for her hastily discarded sachet. “I must catch a breath of air.”

“Let me escort you. If you faint, you might strike your head and hurt yourself.”

His words echoed down the hallway after her, because she had already fled.

“Miss Dunne looks unwell, sir.” Depositing the morning newspapers on the office desk, Mrs. Mainprice peered at James, the corners of her eyes creasing until her skin looked like the pattern of cracks in a glaze of sugar. “I passed her in the hallway, rushing headfirst for the garden, white as a ghost.”

“She nearly fainted in here. Something in my medical text upset her.” It lay open to a section on throat diseases. He’d been advising Dr. Calvert on the treatment of a patient suffering from diptheritis, and the picture of swelling and excess membranous tissue, though unpleasant, was far from the worst. Although the illustration had certainly bothered Miss Dunne. “I suppose I should have listened when she told me she’d had a bad experience with illness. Whatever happened, it’s made her apprehensive. She hasn’t told you anything of her past, has she, Mrs. Mainprice?”

“Very little, sir. Just that times were hard back in Ireland and she came here in search of work. The girls tried to get her to say more, but she’s closed tight as a mussel shell. Not a happy past, I’d warrant. She’s borne something unpleasant, but ’tis that not true for most of us?”

His housekeeper’s eyes, which always reminded him of pure country earth, were filled with sympathy. As much for him as for the newly arrived, and increasingly intriguing, Miss Dunne.

James flipped shut his medical book. “I wonder if Miss Dunne is going to be able to do what I need from her, after all.”

“I think Miss Dunne wants to be helpful, and I trust she’ll work hard.” She swept up his dirty dishes from breakfast, loading them into her arms. “Besides, she’s got a good heart.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“There’s not much gets past me, sir.”

He knew how true that was. Mrs. Mainprice had served his family since James had been a boy, and she’d always been keenly observant. Father had relied on her advice
when hiring other servants and James had done likewise, because she could see through the hardest of shells right down to the meaty core of a person. He suspected she was seeing right down to the core of him at that moment too.

“I suppose I should go out to the garden and see how she’s faring,” he said.

“Miss Dunne might appreciate a kind word, sir.”

“Then I dare not dawdle.”

Once she departed with the dirty dishes, James headed out through the rear door of the house and into the murky London morning. He averted his eyes from the tattered condition of the flower beds. He hadn’t come out here to remember former days.

Miss Dunne heard the crunch of boots upon the gravel walk and looked over. Hastily, she stood. “Dr. Edmunds, I did not mean to spend so long in the garden—”

He halted her with a raised hand. “Take as long as you need.”

The color was returning to her cheeks. She was very lovely, fresh and bright in a way so many of the young women of his acquaintance weren’t, their faces already dulled by cynicism and self-obsession. Even Louisa Castleton, only nineteen and jaded.

“I am certain you would prefer I got to work in the library,” she said. “You are not paying me to enjoy the flowers.”

What little was left of them. “I’m not, but I’m also not paying you to endure situations that make you ill. Don’t feel badly over what occurred in my office. If you aren’t comfortable attending to my patients, I understand. I shall be able to manage them on my own, I’m sure.”

“Thank you for your kindness, Dr. Edmunds.”

“It isn’t kindness to recognize when a member of my staff is unsuited for a particular task. It is an investment toward a well-run household.”

“Nonetheless, I do not like to cause a commotion or be a bother.”

But she already had caused a commotion, if the surprising way he felt when he touched her hand was any indication. Selfishly—or stupidly—he was looking forward to discovering what further surprises were in store.

“I believe, Miss Dunne, you would never be a bother to me.”

CHAPTER 7

I am truly sorry, Mrs. Mainprice, but I cannot attend services this morning. My head is splitting,” Rachel fibbed, padding the horrible untruth with an apologetic smile. She did not have a headache yet, but she would if she had to face God in His house.

“Another bad night’s sleep, miss?”

“No, not at all.” Thankfully, last night had been free of nightmares. “I simply do not feel well. I must still be adjusting to London and all its noises and whatnot. I hope Dr. Edmunds will not mind.”

“If you need a powder, I keep some in the pantry off the kitchen.”

“I might just sit in the garden for a while. Sunlight and fresh air should cure it.”

“We’re off to St. Peter’s, then.” She bustled out of Rachel’s room. Rachel heard the front door closing downstairs. She let a few minutes pass before she headed out to the garden.

The garden was just as quiet—and just as sad-looking—
as it had been yesterday. Weeds intermingled with flowers, many of which were exotic types she did not recognize and certainly would never see in Ireland. The gravel paths needed new rocks and the stone milkmaid fountain standing guard at the center sprouted a growth of black mold along her skirts. Even the bricks in the wall needed fresh mortar. It had to have been beautiful once. If it were her garden, the roses would still be blooming and scenting the air with the rich perfume Mother so loved. Instead the roses grew spindly, dead blossoms choking the ends, their promise of beauty and hope faded and gone.

She and the roses were kindred spirits, Rachel thought as she sank onto one of the iron benches, and why she found the garden strangely consoling. It had certainly settled her mind yesterday, after that disaster in Dr. Edmunds’s office. Or had it been his sudden thoughtfulness that had calmed her?

“Eh, there, Miss Dunne.” Joe’s voice, followed by the slap of the rear door shutting, interrupted her thoughts.

“Oh, Joe. Good morning. I thought you were at church with the others.”

“Too many chores today. Don’ tell Dr. E.” He winked. “You all right, then? Heard your ’ead was botherin’ you.”

“It is much better, out here in the fresh air.”

“I guess it’s fresh,” he said, pushing back his cap to scratch his head. Joe sniffed the air. “I think it smells like the ’orses out in the mews.”

She grinned at his comment. Thank heavens someone in this household could lift her spirits. Someone besides Dr. Edmunds on the rare occasions when he smiled or told her she would never be a bother.

“What are you about this morning?” Rachel asked, nodding at the thin-bladed saw hanging from his hand.

“I’ve come to trim the branches of the pear tree there. It’s ’alf-dead. Though it seems awful late an’ all to be trimmin’ the trees in ’ere. The garden’s gotten so tattered, were it a cloth a rag-picker’d want nothin’ to do with it.”

“Why was it permitted to go to such ruin?”

Joe shrugged. “Dr. E stopped anyone from tendin’ it after ’is wife died. Reminded him of ’er, I s’pose. Was ’er garden, an’ all. But it’s not like ’e was gonna do the work ’imself. Coulda hired a gardener to keep it trimmed and tidied. I woulda done the work meself,” he stated, dropping the saw beneath the sickly tree and wandering off to retrieve a ladder propped against the rear wall.

Dr. Edmunds’s wife’s garden. Her death must have pained him deeply, for him to have ignored the garden so as not to be reminded of her.

“It is a shame, even for that reason,” she said when Joe returned.

“That it is,” he replied, setting up the ladder. “I coulda got those lilacs bloomin’ again.”

“You really would like to be a gardener.” She tried to imagine Joe, scrappy and streetwise, hunkered down among pansies and ladies’ slipper.

“I grew up in the stews, but I still remember the first time I saw Hyde Park. So green it made your eyes ’urt.”

“You would like Ireland, Joe. It is a green like you might never imagine here in London.” Here, the colors were muted by the soot and fog, like clothing that had been washed one too many times. “The sky overhead can be soft and blue like ducks’ eggs or ruffled with scudding clouds. And
when the heather blooms purple, there is nothing sweeter on this earth than to lie down among its scented flowers. My little sisters love to bury their faces in the blossoms and breathe deep . . .” Oh, this was making her heart hurt worse than thoughts of church services. She had to stop.

“So ya see why I like bein’ out ’ere. It were pretty, when I first got ’ere, a few months after the missus died. Not anymore.” He shook his head and started climbing the ladder.